Dock visual redundancy and functional shortcomings
Problem
Users generally perceive that over time, macOS Dock icons converge in shape (e.g., squircle 'jails'), redundant default apps (Apple TV, Arcade, etc.) occupy valuable screen space without utility, and lack effective window management information, resulting in poor multi-monitor/Spaces experience. Users are forced to rely on third-party tools for mitigation.
Pain points
- Icon homogenization leading to loss of visual distinction and difficulty identifying target apps
- Redundant default apps (Apple TV, Arcade, etc.) occupying space without utility
- Degraded Dock functionality on multi-monitor/Spaces, lacking window management information
- Cumbersome hide/remove operations with slow animations, high cost when setting up new Macs
- Lack of native customization, requiring paid third-party tools
Questions to verify
- Have you ever found it difficult to quickly identify target apps due to Dock icon homogenization?
- Do you manually remove default Apple service apps (like Apple TV, Arcade), and do you find the process cumbersome?
- On multi-monitor or Spaces setups, do you find Dock's window management information insufficient, requiring supplemental tools?
Evidence
quote · @Anonymous
The icons sure do start to look boring when they are all the same shape.The iTunes icon in 10.7 kicked it off. If felt lazy and out of place, even at the time I hated it. Then other new apps followed in the same style... App Store, Books, TV, News... By 10.15 most of the life had been drained from the icons. Then in 10.16 they went fully corporate and boring, shoving them all into their little squircle jails where they've remained for 6 years and counting.
quote · @Anonymous
Completely useless for the past 20 years. I have it always hidden with 0 loss of functionality. It provides no info about what windows are open, it does random things when you click on an icon, it has an indicator that tells you that an app is in memory but may or may not have a window. And all these become even worse once you have multiple monitors / spaces. Just copy whatever gnome/kde/windows are doing. All of these have figured it out. Only macOS needs an investment of like $50 per year in helper apps to deal with the poor app and window management.
quote · @Anonymous
Look how wiiide it’s become, full of so much gunk now. I could use spotlight for all these, which is telling why Apple is using it for promotion instead of being useful for the users. So much of this is redundant and promotional; I don’t want Apple TV, Apple Arcade, Apple maps, iPhone mirroring, all 3x of the phone and messages and FaceTime, or the Siri app on my dock.
quote · @Anonymous
My favorites are probably the 10.8/10.9 rounded flat matte w/perspective look because it does such a nice job of looking polished without being garish (unlike the 10.5-10.7 glossy dock, which I didn't like that much) followed by the 10.2-10.4 for its sheer simplicity. 10.1/10.2 gets third place simply because they're the OGs and the pinstripe texture was fun. 10.10 onwards is pretty forgettable. During the 10.5-10.7 era there were a number of third-party dock themes people made that worked by swapping a few image resources, which in addition to visuals could adjust reflectiveness. I had mine set to a nice studio-lit dark gray matte shelf with white 3D indicator arrows.
Disclaimer: this card is distilled by AI from community discussions as “pain point evidence”. It is a starting point for need analysis and validation, not a “validated market need”. AI has analytical limits; please open the original discussion above to manually verify before key decisions.